A few notes:
- William J. Reese lets the world know that none of this testing business is new. Good read. [New York Times]
- Pearson apologized for errors on the gifted and talented test. They get a stern warning, and get to sit in the corner for millions of dollars. (Commentary mine.) [GothamSchools]
- I was asked to write why Michelle Rhee isn’t going to face jail time, but Dr. Beverly Hall, former head honcho of Atlanta Public Schools, might. Jersey Jazzman said what I might right here. [Jersey Jazzman]
- A heartwrenching story about living in the memory of Hadiya Pendleton. [Chicago Now]
- Chloe Angyal reports on punishments and suspensions. Worth noting: Black girls with disabilities are suspended at a rate sixteen percent higher than white girls with disabilities. Goodness. [The Nation]
How did we in the teacher unions create MichelleRhee? We were too intransigent, says Merrow. If we only had gone along with the corporate agenda of charter schools, testing everything that breathes, linking student test scores to teacher performance evaluations and doing away with tenure and seniority then we wouldn’t have created MichelleRhee. The weird thing is that I think we did go along with all those things.
Didn’t we?
– Fred Klonsky, on John Merrow’s hypothesis that it was partly the unions’ fault Michelle Rhee became so big. As if.